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shashanks's review against another edition
5.0
The book that will keep you up at nights.It shows the true cost of cavalier 'chalta-hai' and 'jugaad' attitude in India.After reading this ,if you can afford,you will definitely not opt for a generic drug.Something which could have been of immense benefit to the exorbitantly expensive healthcare system has been sacrificed at the altar of corporate greed.I am reading this book while the world is engulfed in the Corona-virus epidemic,and can't help but think how the future will work out.Hopefully the global threat will lead to global action in shoring up the corrupt practices in pharmaceutical industry.
bookish_emily's review
5.0
Everyone should read this book. It is a truly disturbing look into the generic drug industry, and how a lack of effective regulation has led to a flood of unsafe and ineffective medications being sold and consumed around the world. Even though I work with pharmacists, I still did not have a good understanding of how generic drugs differed from the brand name versions, or how they got approved by the FDA. This book makes it clear how bureaucracy and corporate greed have subverted what should have been a public health triumph and turned it into a corrupt money machine with no regard for the patients it should be helping. It really makes you think twice about what is in your medicine cabinet!
wildweasel105's review against another edition
5.0
Katherine Eban, the investigative reporter who brought us the frightening world of counterfeit drugs and the gray market in her book “Dangerous Doses”, once again tackles an even larger threat to public health on a world wide scale- the corruption and malfeasance found in the generic drug industry in India. This is a powerfully informative expose of how the generic drug boom took shape from the 1980’s through the early 2000’s and the role that the pharmaceutical manufacturers in India played in producing so many of the medications the world has come to depend on. But who knew how they have been found to be so dangerously non-compliant in the vetting methods used to ensure their quality?
Eban is a consummate researcher and compels the reader to consider how the Indian drug manufacturers managed to keep our Food and Drug Administration from vetting their sterile drug production process on so many levels for so long. America had to face the fact that the FDA really had no jurisdiction overseas, but our agency worked doggedly to prove that India’s quality control methods were the root cause for placing so many dangerous medications on the market.
Who would have thought that the world’s AIDS crisis of the 1990’s would allow India to become one of the great global pharmaceutical giants? Who would have thought that their haphazard quality control methods would pave the way for the FDA’s investigation into their generic drugs? An investigation that would ultimately come home to expose some of the most respected American generic drug firms with the same problems? These questions and many more can be answered in this fascinating history that delves into the seamy side of world politics, economies and the FDA’s struggle to protect the American public from taking the generic drugs that we’ve all come to take for granted.
In the thirty years I’ve spent as a pharmacist, the last eleven of which have been in the regulatory field, no book (other than “Dangerous Doses”) has given me such an informative insight into the world of pharmaceutical mismanagement than this scathing indictment of greed and the willful desire of a small cartel of generic drug producers to cover up their misdeeds.
Eban is a consummate researcher and compels the reader to consider how the Indian drug manufacturers managed to keep our Food and Drug Administration from vetting their sterile drug production process on so many levels for so long. America had to face the fact that the FDA really had no jurisdiction overseas, but our agency worked doggedly to prove that India’s quality control methods were the root cause for placing so many dangerous medications on the market.
Who would have thought that the world’s AIDS crisis of the 1990’s would allow India to become one of the great global pharmaceutical giants? Who would have thought that their haphazard quality control methods would pave the way for the FDA’s investigation into their generic drugs? An investigation that would ultimately come home to expose some of the most respected American generic drug firms with the same problems? These questions and many more can be answered in this fascinating history that delves into the seamy side of world politics, economies and the FDA’s struggle to protect the American public from taking the generic drugs that we’ve all come to take for granted.
In the thirty years I’ve spent as a pharmacist, the last eleven of which have been in the regulatory field, no book (other than “Dangerous Doses”) has given me such an informative insight into the world of pharmaceutical mismanagement than this scathing indictment of greed and the willful desire of a small cartel of generic drug producers to cover up their misdeeds.
aclassi_k's review
4.0
This story heaviky focuses on one Indian company and its long fight with the FDA. This is a very American story and I was expecting it to be much more worldwide.
justjaqueline's review against another edition
informative
tense
3.5
An interesting, if a bit repetitive, exploration of generic drugs manufacturing and the way corporations would do anything to maximise profit.
The stances about FDA and the US throughout made it come across a bit worship-y at times.
I was also hoping I would not see the names of some generic drug company I buy, and then I read about Sandoz. Why do you have to betray me like this.
The stances about FDA and the US throughout made it come across a bit worship-y at times.
I was also hoping I would not see the names of some generic drug company I buy, and then I read about Sandoz. Why do you have to betray me like this.
smithmd's review against another edition
challenging
informative
medium-paced
2.25
This book would have been a great true crime and expose on the flaws in our healthcare system that makes us dependent on short cuts. But instead, the book focuses on to much on how it's an Indian culture issue.
raijhu's review
5.0
This book is similar to Bad Blood, in that it follows a journalists account of a scientific train wreck. The topic is generic drugs, and oh boy, it's an internationally corrupt doozy. Everyone should read it to know more about what happens in generics manufacturing.
jhrcook's review against another edition
adventurous
informative
reflective
medium-paced
3.75
Bottle of Lies unravels some of the most dangerous and pervasive fraud that plagues drug manufacturing. At the time of reading, I’ve been working at a US pharmaceuticals company for 1.5 years and can attest to the caution and precision that is required to maintain good research and manufacturing processes. Reading this book, I became acutely aware about how critical maintaining a culture that observes and values those processes is to the entire industry. There are some many opportunities for fraud and deceit, only exasperated by the limited oversight the U.S. agencies have in foreign countries. Eban does a great job of walkign the reader through the complexity of this industry, both the biomedical field and the regulatory structure and systems. The narrative style she employs, revealing the story in a manner similar to how it unfolded in real time, highlights for the reader the complexity and scale of the issue – it starts with a trickle, but as there is more investigation, it’s really a massive flood.